Taiwan-Lithuanian ties would strengthen the two nations’ respective high-tech industries, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said in an interview published on Friday, adding that the bilateral relationship is not Beijing’s to dictate.
Early this year, Lithuania invited Taipei to open a representative office under the name Taiwan in Vilnius, a decision made by the Baltic nation to strengthen its relationship with the Indo-Pacific region, Simonyte said in an interview with Nikkei Asia.
China’s angry response to the Taiwan office was “a pity,” she said, but added: “I don’t know whether this is something that, you know, that China can dictate.”
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“We decided that we need a stronger outreach toward like-minded countries, not only in our cozy European Union,” Simonyte told the magazine near the end of her visit to Japan.
The extensive laser manufacturing industry in Lithuania and Solvenia offers synergy to Taiwan’s high-tech sector, including chips, while similar opportunities in life sciences are available due to Lithuania’s robust research universities, she said.
Lithuania produces more than half of the world’s ultrashort scientific lasers, and supplies some of the most advanced laboratories and universities, Nikkei Asia reported, citing the country’s investment promotion Web site.
In May last year, Lithuania pulled out of China’s “17+1” economic bloc with Eastern Europe because Vilnius found the benefits from the alliance to be “very modest” and was troubled by Beijing’s imposition of its views on other countries in the group, she said.
“Some are big, some are small, a little bit patchy,” she said of the Beijing-led group.
“What we were trying to say to our good friends in the EU is that there should be 27+1,” Simonyte said in a call for Europe to deal with China collectively.
Lithuania had urged other EU members to quit the 17+1 bloc at the time, saying that the initiative was “divisive” to the European project.
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